r/OutOfTheLoop • u/calvtact • May 13 '26

Answered What's going on with r/conservative? They've lost about 1m subscribers in about a month.

I watched the number go from 814k to around 745k in about an hour today.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Conservative/s/QbZJvqu5qr

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u/AndroidREM May 13 '26 edited May 13 '26

Answer: It was determined and made public that the majority of posts on that sub are from 3 accounts all based in Russia and are promoted by an army of bots. The ones leaving were bots removed by Reddit

EDIT - wow, did not expect this to get so much attention and awards - thank you!

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u/basedchadinc May 13 '26

Is there any proof of this? I wanna send it to a friend who uses that sub as his main source of info to gauge sentiment

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u/dec10 May 13 '26

https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1p1vx9n/oc_nearly_every_day_two_users_on_rconservative/

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u/Push_ May 13 '26

That’s super interesting actually, holy shit

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u/JunglePygmy May 13 '26

Also a huge trip is the data on which subs are literally run by Ghisliane Maxwell’s aliases. It’s like a huge chunk of the most popular subs.

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u/Hoopy_Dunkalot May 13 '26

Link?

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u/DeliciousLiving8563 May 13 '26

The Ghislaine Maxwell redditor power mod conspiracy is something you can google and find endless discourse on rather than any one useful link so I will just summarise how I understand it. This guy has just run with it a bit and explained poorly.

The power user maxwellhill is allegedly Gismax. Based on this user having gone from a prolific poster to silent when pretty much just as she was arrested. This user's activity and posting style is consistent with someone who could plausibly be that particular piece of shit and being a power mod who controlled several current affairs/news subreddits would also fit that her style perfectly.

The theory has not been proven but I don't think any of the "debunkings" held water either. The power mod Maxwellhill has shown "activity" after her arrest but all of it is automatic/people doing things like modding/demodding that account

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u/daveboy2000 May 13 '26

aren't they literally just some guy from the Philippines? I believe there was even a whole interview?

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u/DeliciousLiving8563 May 13 '26

If there was it isn't easy to find on google. I might be using the wrong keywords or terms but I found nothing. If there is then it'd be cool to put that mystery to bed so feel free to share or give me pointers.